A blog about science fiction and fantasy novels, films and related matters

Saturday, 19 November 2016

The Rook, and Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley

Present-day London is the base for a centuries-old secret
intelligence organisation, headed by people with a range of supernatural
abilities, which supports the government in various ways including suppressing
any uncontrolled supernatural occurrences.These elements of contemporary urban fantasy in The Rook are not entirely original, you may think, and you'd be
right. But the quality of a story lies in how the plot is handled, and this one
is done very well.

A young woman gains consciousness and realises that she is
standing in a park in the pouring rain, badly beaten and surrounded by dead
bodies. She also realises that she has no memories at all, and has no idea who
she is. She soon finds information, most particularly letters in her pocket from
Myfanwy Alice Thomas, the first starting:"Dear You, the body you are
wearing used to be mine."

Following an information trail left by the letter-writer,
the new Myfanwy gradually realises that she has some remarkable powers and that
the previous occupant of her body was a senior officer (a Rook – they like
chess names) in the Checquy, the aforementioned secret intelligence
organisation. The old Myfanwy had received occult advanced warning about what
was going to happen to her, which was the result of an attack by an unknown
senior person in the organisation, so had prepared for her successor. New Myfanwy,
with the help of the copious guidance notes left by her body's previous owner,
has to convince the Checquy hierarchy that she is who she appears to be, while
trying to work out who had attacked her. It doesn't help that her personality
is very different from the shy original, being far more assertive. Or that she
is constantly under pressure to deal with a range of weird emergencies, leaving
her with little time to address the threat to herself.

The Rook is a fun mystery/adventure/crime thriller with
horror elements which I was reluctant to put down and eager to get back to –
something that happens too rarely these days. New Myfanwy is a resourcefuland likeable character and this reader was
cheering her on from beginning to end. The only niggle which bothered me was,
as usual, something rather more mundane than super-powers and vampires: I
couldn’t help wondering how, if the original Myfanwy’s memories and personality
were completely wiped, a functioning human being with a fully-formed – and very
different – personality was left in her place; where did she some from? Our
personalities are to a great extent the sum total of our experiences and
memories, after all. With those all wiped, what would be left? Maybe this will
be addressed in the sequel, Stiletto,
which was released recently and is at the top of my “to buy” list.

*********************

Stiletto
continues the story, with some significant differences: most noticeably, while
retaining an important role, Myfanwy no longer provides the viewpoint. Instead,
this is shared between two contrasting characters: Felicity Clements, a junior
Pawn soldier of the Checquy, and Odette Leliefeld, a young medical specialist
of a rival European secret organisation, the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen, better known to
the Checquy as the Grafters. The Grafters are fundamentally different from the
Checquy in that they are not born with any special abilities but have mastered
medical science to a phenomenal degree, using their skills to build a range of
enhancements into their bodies.

We learned towards the end of The Rook that a deadly emnity had existed between the two
organisations for centuries, following a brief, devastating war between them.
But a tentative peace agreement had been reached (largely due to Myfanwy's
involvement); this is where Stiletto
begins, and it remains the main plot thread throughout. Odette is part of the
Grafter delegation to peace talks in London and a reluctant Felicity is
assigned to her as a bodyguard. The pair do not initially get on, but
contribute their different skills in a series of crises, most particularly
concerning an unknown third party which seems to be focused on destroying the
peace agreement, the resolution of which forms the climax of the story.

Like the first volume, Stiletto
is an intriguing page-turner with likeable characters and is written with
sardonic humour – sometimes, perhaps, a little too much of it. The writing also
shows signs of bloat, with time taken out for long biographies and descriptive
passages, which slows the pace in parts of the story. Finally, for my taste the
various monsters that have to be dealt with are somewhat extreme, although I
have no doubt that other readers will enjoy this. Oh, and there is still no
explanation for the arrival of Myfanwy's strong new personality, nor any
further mention of the devastating "weapon of mass destruction" she
deploys twice at the start of The Rook.
Despite this, Stiletto is a worthy
sequel which maintained my interest throughout.

Overall, these two novels are a significant addition to
contemporary urban fantasy and I will be looking out for any sequels.

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Welcome to the SFF blog

I started this blog in order to post reviews and comments on Science Fiction and Fantasy (mostly books or films, but occasionally on more general issues such as publishing and marketing), and of course to alert those readers not yet aware of the delights which lie in store within the covers of my own novels...see below.

This remains the main purpose of this blog, but topics may also cover non-fiction issues which may be of interest to SFF enthusiasts. Longer articles, mostly taken from earlier blog posts, are listed below, along with a full index of all book, TV and film reviews.

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Anthony G Williams

Scales

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The Foresight War

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